The way it was: Today in history

Mary Pickford

Throwback Thursday: A look back at events in history on February 18.

In this photo, Mary Pickford packs the last oranges in one of the boxes on Feb. 16, 1931 which will make up a six-car donation by the California fruit growers exchange to a train load of food that motion picture people are soliciting for the Red Cross, to re-used by drought sufferers.

Other cars will be filled with canned goods bought with money contributed from Hollywood studios. Miss Pickford is aiding the committee.

Credit: AP

Dizzy Dean

The great Dizzy Dean gives a group of rookies at a Hot Springs, Arkansas baseball school, February 18, 1935, an object lesson in the pitching motion which has been described by sports writers as the smoothest ever known.

Credit: AP

Mouse after A-bomb tests

Two of 40,000 mice being used in atomic tests at Oak Ridge, Tennessee by scientists seeking to learn the possible effects of radiation on the heredity of man are displayed by the Atomic Energy Commission, Feb. 18, 1950.

The mouse on the right is described by the AEC as a "hereditary mutation" - a descendant of mice which have been given periodic doses of X-ray. A normal litter mate in on the left.

Credit: AP

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg protest

General view of the interior of the Palais des Sports in Paris on February 18, 1953 at the Communist organized meeting held there to protest the death sentences for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the U.S. for espionage.

Credit: Gerard Yvon Cheynet/AP

German refugees

American high commissioner Dr. James B. Conant, center with glasses, inspects a refugee camp in an empty factory building occupied by refugees from East Germany, in West Berlin, February 18, 1953.

Standing right is Dr. Dietrich Blos president of the Red Cross in Berlin.

Credit: Werner Kreusch/AP

Senator Joe McCarthy

Senator Joseph McCarthy, right, seeking to link television commentator Edward R. Murrow with a communist propaganda school in the 1930s, checks some papers during his appearance on the Fulton Lewis Jr. nationwide radio program from Washington on March 11, 1954.

In a Q&A with Lewis, McCarthy said he referred to a Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph editor for February 18, 1935 with a headline, American Adviser to Communist Propaganda School.

Credit: Henry Burroughs/AP

School integration

Two black pupils hurry past photographers on their way to Warren County High School, which opened on an integrated basis, Feb. 18, 1959.

No white students showed up - only 22 black students reported for enrollment in the previously all-white school designed for 1,000 pupils.

Credit: Henry Burroughs/AP

The Beatles meet Muhammad Ali

The British band, who took the U.S. by storm after arriving eleven days earlier, reportedly asked to meet heavyweight champ, Sonny Liston. After the champ turned them down, the Beatles dropped into the Fifth Street Gym where Ali was training for his match up with Liston scheduled for Feb. 25.

The meeting happened two days after their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Ali went on to became heavyweight champion and soon after announced his name change from Cassius Clay to Muhammed Ali

The Beatles, left to right: Paul McCartney; John Lennon; George Harrison and Ringo Starr, were on holiday in the resort after their American tour.

Credit: NAP/AP

Marine injured in Vietnam

A seriously wounded Marine screams and recites the Lord's Prayer as a wounded comrade tries to comfort him at their outpost in a house in Hue's Citadel, February 18, 1968.

Credit: AP

Multi-person bridesmaid's gown

A multi-person bridesmaid's gown made of paper is presented at a show of disposable fashions in New York City on Feb. 18, 1969. The four-person train-dress consists of a huge, scalloped sheet of yellow paper with four head holes and eight arm slits.

Credit: AP

Maurice Gibb gets married

Scottish born British Pop star Lulu and her husband Maurice Gibb one of the Bee Gees pop group, smile and wave to pop fans at Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire on February 18, 1969, after at their wedding.

Credit: Peter Kemp/AP

POWs

Part of the large crowd of servicemen and families give an enthusiastic welcome to the returned POWs who go past them into the bus taking them to the hospital at Clark Air Base, Philippines on February 18, 1973 after their arrival from Hanoi.

Credit: Anonymous, AP

Shuttle Enterprise

America's Space Shuttle Enterprise, rides atop a 747 on its first test flight at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif, February 18, 1977.

Enterprise has been separated from the NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier at John F. Kennedy International Airport, just weeks after flying over New York City. Next month it will be taken by barge to the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, the floating air-and-space museum that will be the shuttle's permanent home.

Credit: AP

Lockerbie bombing

A Scottish court refused November 14, 2008, to release Al-Megrahi on bail over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, after he requested his freedom because he has terminal cancer. His lawyers argued that Al-Megrahi, jailed in 2001 over the bombing which killed 270 people, did not have long to live and should be released on compassionate grounds.